


Finding Home

by AllThoseOtherWorlds



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Gabriel Lives, Gen, Memory Loss, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 13:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1551491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThoseOtherWorlds/pseuds/AllThoseOtherWorlds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gale wakes up on the street one day with no memory, and proceeds to build himself a life - however odd it feels. Years later, a trip to a museum brings everything rushing back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Home

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for day one of Story a Day. The prompt was a 1200 word story on a character trying to return home. I kind of got away from the prompt a little bit, but this was inspired by it.
> 
> Comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Even if you don't end up finishing the whole story, I'd like to know why you did or didn't like it.
> 
> Enjoy!

                Gale opened the door to the shop with a cheerful smile, pleased that he had (for once) made it on time. He grinned at his boss’ demands that he “keep his hands off the merchandise” and grabbed a lollipop from the stand before waltzing behind the counter.

                “You have no shame, you know that?” Lucas told him, voice chiding but tolerant. Gale just shrugged.

                “Don’t like it, don’t keep paying me,” he retorted, knowing that Lucas wasn’t going to fire him. Despite his sometimes-irritating personality, he was surprisingly talented at manipulating people into buying candy.

                He’d been working here for just over four and a half years now, having gotten the job some months after waking up on the streets one morning, unconscious and amnesiac. He still didn’t know who he was, or what his life had been like. Hell, he didn’t even know his actual name – he went by Gale because some people he’d met on the streets in the first month had suggested names to him, and that sounded better than any of the others.

                Despite his lack of memory, he was mostly happy with the way his life was. He liked working at the candy store, and enjoyed his fair share of time outside of work, too. There was something strange about it though – he felt oddly out of place, and even more so when he made any friends. He knew he was strange – he seemed pretty much immune to sleep deprivation, or the bad effects of all he junk food he ate – but it felt deeper than that, as though there was somewhere he was supposed to be, but he couldn’t possibly go.

                In response, he acted as obnoxiously cheerful as he could get away with being.

                The morning crowd was fairly light that day, as usual, and Gale spent the first hour puttering about restlessly, checking on the candy periodically as if it were going to go somewhere. Finally, he gave up and pulled out a magazine to read. It was filled with unbelievable conspiracy theories and the like, and although Gale didn’t buy any of it, he enjoyed laughing at other people.

                When lunchtime rolled around, he grabbed his bag from the back room and went to sit back by the counter to munch on his – alarmingly unhealthy, as he’d been warned by no less than four people in the past month – peanut butter and chocolate sandwich.

                As if drawn in by his thoughts, the shop door opened with a tinkle to let in a young woman with alarmingly vibrant blue hair.

                “Eris!” he called to her, smiling broadly. “How’s the Booktrap doing?”

                Eris owned a medium-sized bookstore just down the road from the shop, and made a point of stopping in to visit Gale on her lunch breaks. He’d met her a few days after starting the job, and they’d gotten along pretty well ever since.

                “Not bad,” she responded, peering over the counter to glance at the cover of his magazine. “Really, Gale? Still reading that crap?”

                “It’s an interesting view of human idiocy,” he responded. “You guys believe the weirdest things, I swear.”

                “Oh, like you’re not human?” She teased.

                “How would you know if I wasn’t?” He asked, teasing back but also slightly curious. Logically he knew he had to be human – what else would he be? – but he also couldn’t quite shake the feeling that there was more to him than that. He had nothing against humans, obviously (he probably _was_ human, after all), but he’d always felt distanced from them, as though he was living here but not really at home.

                Not that he actually knew where it was he should be instead. Thinking about it just gave him a headache and a bout of melancholy sulking that resulted in everyone getting pissed off at the pranks he pulled to cheer himself up. He could never be sure if it was the not knowing that bothered him, or whatever it was he didn’t know.

                Eris knew none of this, of course, and continued the conversation without pause.

                “So I was thinking,” she said.

                “That can’t be a good sign,” Gale told her. “You’ve gotta be careful with that.”

                “Gale!” She chastised him. “ _As_ I was saying, I was thinking we should check out the museum one of these days. They have a new exhibit on mythology and stuff, and I thought it might be cool to check out.”

                Gale waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Aren’t people usually naked in those paintings and statues and stuff?” he asked.

                Eris looked for a moment like she was about to scold him again, but she settled on laughing instead. “Yeah,” she said. “If that’s what it takes to get you to come. Megan and Tariq are coming too.”

                “Sure,” Gale said. “Where and when?”

                As he stepped into the museum exhibit with the others that Saturday, Gale was overwhelmed by the strangest feeling of familiarity. He was sure he’d never seen these pieces before, but there was something about them that made him feel as though he should know all about them.

                He fought back the feeling, not wanting another bout of melancholy today – any more pranking and he wasn’t sure Megan would talk to him again, and they didn’t allow candy in the museum, so there went both of his usual coping mechanisms.

                Instead, he threw himself into learning about the pieces and reading the plaques on the walls. Maybe if he really did learn about the pieces, the familiarity wouldn’t be so strange? He wondered absently if he had studied this stuff before losing his memory or something. It would, at the very least, explain the Deja-Vu.

                “Hey, look at this one!” Eris called to him as she gestured to a painting featuring what appeared to be an angel smiting stuff. “The Archangel Gabriel,” she read. “Messenger of God.”

                Gale scoffed. “Some use that is,” he said. “What’s the use in being a messenger if nobody ever tells you anything?”

                “What?” Eris asked, confused and probably surprised by the bitterness in Gale’s voice. Gale was surprised by the bitterness, too, to be perfectly honest. Why did he care?

                “Well, what would happen if Gabriel stopped getting any messages from God?” he tried to ask. “ _We_ certainly aren’t getting any.”

                What actually happened, however, sounded a bit more like “Well, what would happen if Gabrie-aaugh!”

                He collapsed on the floor mid-sentence, hands pressed to his head as he tried not to scream.

                Memories were coming back to him, flashes of history and knowledge that Gale knew he shouldn’t have had, but which some part of him knew he should never have lost.

                He saw everything: every moment he’d witnessed in Earth and Heaven spread out before him. He knew he should have been glad to have regained his memories and knowledge of how to use his (thankfully still-present) Grace, but instead all he felt was a crushing sadness that he could no longer even pretend to have a home. Heaven was too busy fighting, Hell wasn’t worth it, and Earth – well, maybe Earth wasn’t that bad.

                After all, despite the knowledge that he didn’t belong here, he _had_ found companionship of a sort, right?

                But he was done hiding. He’d hidden for millennia, keeping his true identity hidden both from Heaven and from the Pagan gods with whom he’d camouflaged. He was done – screw it, he’d died once already and if this didn’t work out, well, it wasn’t like anyone had to remember it, right?

                Pulling himself up from the floor, he glanced around to see Eris watching him – along with Megan and Tariq, who’d wandered back in from the other room and were now staring at him with varying expressions of concern and confused worry.

                “Hey,” he said to them. “So, by the way, I’m the archangel Gabriel.” He smirked at the picture on the wall. “And that painter got my wings all wrong, if you were wondering.”


End file.
